Spent 3 days at Cumberland River Holiday Park just before Christmas. Thanks to some tips on this forum, took the rod 'n' reel down hoping to catch some whiting.Tips I'd gleaned were:Fish last 1-2 hours of outgoing/1st hour of incoming tideAim for gutters/channels where the whiting will be feedingYou don't need to cast out into the breakers as the whiting will be around your anklesPipis, mussels & possibly squid strips are best bait.Luckily low tide was predicted for early afternoon when kids wanted to go to the beach, had a packet of pipis & my trusty all-purpose Shimano Stradic 5000 reel on a 6-8kg Nitro rod with braid & a mono leader, a basic single hook whiting rig with a running sinker above the swivel & a couple of fluoro beads just above the hook.Headed to the beach and the left hand side (facing the ocean) had some awesome rock pools, headed out to the end of these rocks & I could see lots of gutters in knee-thigh deep water. Could even see a few small fish in the water running up between the rocks - looked promising.Headed down pretty much directly in front of the end of the left hand rocks and started casting out 5-10 metres with the waves coming up to my knees-thighs with the occasional one getting up to my waist (which was fine as it was a hot day and the water was beautiful & not rough)Didn't take long before I started getting some bites and was about half an hour til I hooked the first fish, a beautiful but under-sized whiting.Had the buzz then so kept going, but couldn't roam around to try different gutters out as the kids were playing on the rocks directly behind be & I couldn't leave them there alone.This turned out to be a fatal mistake as about half an hour before low tide, a pair of local lads show up & wade into the water not 20 metres to my left (i.e. in front of the middle section of the left hand rocks) and start casting out a tad further than I was. It seemed it was a bit shallower where they were so they could get a bit further out with their casts. Well f**k me if on his first cast one of the lads hooks up a whiting! Looked under-sized to me but he marched back to his bucket, tossed it in, waded back out and essentially repeated this cycle, over and over. He landed a fish on every 2nd cast for half an hour and it looked like they were using some sort of metal lure on a standard rod (i.e. not a surf rod)HIs mate was less successful but still easily landed at least 8 or 10, the fist guy easily bagged 20+ fish in under an hour. Several looked under-sized, some were clearly legal, but I didn't see him throw any back.They were far away enough and busy enough that I couldn't get over to ask what sort of lure they were using but geez it was demoralising as I was getting a few bites and could see fish chasing my bait as I was reeling in but nothing like they were getting.I kept going with my pipis and ended up catching 4 great but under-sized whiting and as tempting as it was to keep a couple for an afternoon fry-up, I threw them all back, so came home empty handed after 3 hours and kinda annoyed that someone else bagged out 10 metres away from me in under an hour!So there you go, I hope people find this useful. It was a great spot to fish, with polarised sunnies on you can literally see the whiting swimming around you in knee deep water.Next time I'll try some different baits and probably do some more research on whiting lures. If anyone has any tips on the best lures for whiting please share as it'd be a lot easier than carrying pocketfuls of smelly pipis!I'll also be sure to move around if one spot isn't productive and at least next time I know to start where those other dudes were!Have attached a couple of Google earth pics showing location. (NB it's mid-tide in the pics, at low tide you can get right out past the end of the rocks)Cheers

hi andybuck, do you have any pics of the whiting you caught? I only ask because Ive fished those exact rocks before and never been lucky enough to catch one let alone see anybody catch a KGW! Cheers for the report

shazdoggg wrote:hi andybuck, do you have any pics of the whiting you caught? I only ask because Ive fished those exact rocks before and never been lucky enough to catch one let alone see anybody catch a KGW! Cheers for the report

Hey shazdoggg, sorry no pics as I was wading in surf and didn't take my phone (risk of either dropping it or getting drenched by wave or getting nicked if left on beach in a bag).

eddyt wrote:Maybe they were silver whiting? They have no size limits. I've caught whiting on small 2" metal vibes before, slow rolled. Maybe give that a try next time.

Thanks eddyt, pretty sure they were juvenile whiting. Long, thin, silver, with a few spots - see attached pic (from a fishing ID site, not my pic)(I thought "silver" whiting were same as KGW, which have size limit of 27cm & bag limit of 20)

Hey mate, im just guessing here but i would say if they are locals they would have been using spew worms or something similar, you can pump the worms around the area and they will usually out fish store bought pippies by a long way, might explain why they were catching a lot more.

shazdoggg wrote:hi andybuck, do you have any pics of the whiting you caught? I only ask because Ive fished those exact rocks before and never been lucky enough to catch one let alone see anybody catch a KGW! Cheers for the report

Hey shazdoggg, sorry no pics as I was wading in surf and didn't take my phone (risk of either dropping it or getting drenched by wave or getting nicked if left on beach in a bag).